Low-fare airline seeks Euro shop

[Helsinki, Finland] Finnair, Finland's national airline, will hear pitches from agencies this month for the $10 million to $12 million pan-European relaunch of Nordic Airlink as a low-cost Scandinavian airline to rival successful no-frills carriers Easyjet and Ryanair. Finnair plans to invest more than $100 million to revamp Nordic Airlink, which previously linked Swedish cities, to operate about 20 routes between Scandinavia and the rest of continental Europe starting in January. Finnair is trying to boost profits after net sales fell by 14% to $366 million in the second quarter of 2003 and operating profits dropped $30 million to a net loss of $10 million.